Taking on life, one sip at a time

Becoming a Better Me: Diet I

Ah, yes. Diet. The word just about all people love to hate.

Let’s clear up what my “diet” is and is not, shall we? First of all, my diet is NOT for me to lose weight. Hubby has lost some weight by following this diet (mostly) with me, but that is not the goal for me. That being said, it is a nice side effect. Next, this diet was NOT my idea. At all. In fact, this diet basically took away all that I love to eat and drink. There is no way I would do that to myself without really good reason. Heck, even with a really good reason it was hard to decide to do it! So, why am I putting myself through it…..?

If you read my why post, you know that things needed to change with me. I knew something was wrong, but I couldn’t tell you exactly what. I was tired, unmotivated, depressed and easily overwhelmed, plus I had actual physical issues like migraine headaches, recurrent UTI’s, digestive problems, and other things that, while not life threatening, were nonetheless taking away from my every day living. Something just wasn’t right. So, I went to get outside help.

To start this process, I had a neurological workup done and a huge questionnaire packet to fill out. From there, we moved on to comprehensive lab work to find out what was actually going on with me. Turns out, I’m not crazy! There are actual, real, measurable problems that need to be addressed. Nothing too serious, but had I continued on the path I was going without intervention, things would have gotten much worse. I’d love to explain it all to you, but to be honest, I don’t think I could. It all made sense when my doctor explained it to me and broke each test result down, but as soon as I left the office, the information was just a mishmash of long words. But the lab results did show that there are real reasons for my all of my issues. That in itself made me feel a better. At least there is something to work with – something to be “fixed”. It’s not just all in my head!

Let food by thy medicine and medicine be thy food.

~ Hippocrates

First step in fixing my issues is to fix my gut. I’m a firm believer that most of the population in this country has gut issues because of the “foods” we regularly eat. What most people don’t realize is how important a healthy gut is to our overall health. I’ve done some reading on it in the past but was still blown away when my doctor tied everything I’ve been dealing with to gut (and liver) issues. I’m by no means an expert so I won’t weigh in too much on all this, other than with what I’m experiencing personally.

So, how does one fix their gut? By eliminating foods. A lot of foods. Foods that I consume regularly. And you know what? That’s really, really hard to do! My doctor put me on a 30 day modified RepairVite program, which is an AIP (auto-immune protocol) diet. I call it Paleo on steroids because it’s more restrictive than Paleo, but along the same lines. Basically, it takes out everything. No grains, no dairy, no sugars of any kind (natural or otherwise), no nightshades (peppers, tomatoes, etc), no soy, no beans or legumes, no high-glycemic fruits like bananas and dried fruits, no condiments because they usually contain gluten, no caffeine, no alcohol…… There are a lot of “no”s in this diet. (Did you see the no coffee and no wine?!?!) Fortunately, I have no autoimmune issues so I am allowed to have eggs and nuts (just not peanuts). That’s why my diet is “modified”. For 30 days, this has been my life. There were a bunch of times when I wanted to quit, but I didn’t. There were loads of times I wanted to cheat, but I didn’t. If I’m going to do this, I’m going to do it right!